(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an article management system and article management apparatus that manage, for example, an article manufactured in an automated factory while it is moving from one process stage position to another.
(2) Description of Related Art
The Japanese patent application Kokai publication No. 2002-337827 discloses an apparatus that manages mail articles by reading ID information of individual mail articles through an antenna of an RF ID tag interrogator that is made to approach or contact to a carrier case that contains plural mail articles each of which carries an RF tag storing ID information.
In this apparatus, if an RF tag attached to a mail article is damaged and becomes unreadable, this RF tag needs to be replaced with a reissued RF tag or to be treated separately from other mail article(s) carrying readable RF tags. It takes a lot of time to reissue a new tag or to manage only mail article(s) carrying unreadable RF tag(s) differently from others.